GREEN Party Leader Natalie Bennett is set to speak out against Breadline Britain in a visit to the South West of England next month.
Ms Bennett will be in Weston-Super-Mare on Thursday 10th October, to meet members of the North Somerset Green Party, and will deliver an address on food poverty, entitled Breadline Britain: Why food banks are growing faster than supermarkets.
She explained: ‘We live in the sixth richest state in the world, yet 500,000 people rely on hand-outs from charities and volunteers simply to stay alive.
‘The volunteers at food banks perform an excellent task, but they should not have to. The rise in food bank use is nothing more than the result of a government which is refusing to carry out even its most basic duty – to ensure the people it represents do not starve.’
As Leader of the Green Party, Natalie has been at the forefront of the opposition to the savage cuts inflicted on the UK’s poorest people by the Coalition government.
At the Party’s recent Conference she promised the Party would not rest ‘until the last food bank has closed its doors, because it is no longer needed’ and hosted a workshop on food poverty with service providers and food bank users, including Jack Munroe, author of the blog A Girl Called Jack, which details her own day-to-day experiences as a food bank user.
She said: ‘The Green Party in Weston-Super-Mare know that the most pressing issue in its local area is poverty, with even working families unable to afford the basics. The region is not alone. There are 13 million people living below the poverty line, and research from CAB, as well as from Oxfam, suggests that 1.35m children go to bed hungry because their parents cannot afford to buy food.
‘Anyone who has read the work of jack Munroe, or heard her speak about her ordeal, could not help but be moved, and to demand action must be taken against a government whose economic policies drive people – working families and those unable to work – to the brink of malnutrition, hunger and into stark, grinding poverty.
‘At the Green Party, we have opposed the Coalition’s cuts from the start. Not because of ideology, or because we simply oppose whatever the government says, but because the cuts are hitting society’s poorest in unacceptable ways. We simply cannot stand by and accept that the only thing standing in the way of millions of adults and children starving is the kind work of religious groups, charities and other voluntary organisations.
‘We must stand together, and demand that the government repeals its cruel policies, or stands aside and lets the Green Party set the country back on its feet.’
Natalie Bennett will be in the South West of England from October 10th-12th, and as well as Weston-Super-Mare, she will visit Bath on Friday 11th, speaking with local Green Party member and national Economics spokesperson Molly Scott Cato about The Green Party: The Real Alternative.